In all likelihood, LeBron James will pass Jordan for most points scored in the playoffs for his career this year. http://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/pts_career_p.html LeBron has 5572 points now and Jordan has 5987. LeBron has averaged 28ppg so far and 26.3 ppg last year. He doesn't really show signs of dropping off far enough to not break MJ's record and Bron is only 32. If LeBron averages 28 for 15 games, he'll break it. That'll be interesting to look out for. At least it will for me.
it's crazy how good his career playoff stats could be. for some reason i was thinking he was around 5000 but i guess that was when i looked it up last year. he will presumably finished 3rd in career assists, possibly 1st in steals, and i think could get to like 5th or 6th in rebounds. he'll need 5 or 6 more deep(ish) playoff runs to do it if he stays on stocked teams there's no reason to think he won't. just has to stay healthy. could maybe even make 2nd in assists, but stockton is so far ahead in 2nd and magic is just as far ahead in 1st. he's also got a really good shot at playing in the most playoff games ever. it's actually crazy how deep horry and fisher always went for them to be so far ahead of lebron in games, considering lebron has already made 11 deep playoff runs, including 7 finals.
FYI : Lebron has played in about 20 more playoff games than Jordan. Jordan is barely in the top 20 for playoff games played, yet #1 in most points scored in the playoffs. I'm more shocked that Kareem isn't #1 on the list. lol. That dude played for 63 seasons. Derek Fisher has played in the most playoff games, btw. lol.
I was living in Chicago during Jordan's 43.7 ppg playoffs. I still can't believe it wasn't covered more, but the whole town was too busy listening to this on our record players: That Bears Super Bowl was so gravitational that my dad switched his hairstyle to the Ditka and he's been wearing it ever since.
This goes to show you how bad Kareem Abdul Jabbar was in the 70s. About the worst playoff performing multi-MVP of all-time. If he was better, there should be no way MJ or Lebron would be close to him....considering all the success Magic handed to him in the 80s. If you can't tell, I love taking the moment to trash Kareem's playoff performance in the 70s, and roll my eyes at fans who rate him better than Hakeem in the GOAT center argument.
He didn't do anything before Oscar and didn't do anything before Magic. Imagine what Wilt could have accomplished with Oscar and Magic most of his career. Yes, i know he had Jerry West and older Baylor and some nice players in LA, but both Wilt and West had had surgeries only a few seasons into their duo seasons.
Discrepancy is in part due to 1st round games- that round didn't exist, then it was best of 3, changed to 5 in the 80s and now 7.
LeBron is the best player in the world, and probably one of the 5 best ever. That victory last year cemented that for me. But his path to at least the conference finals in the east has been laughable every year. He usually faces a team near or well below .500 in the first round, and then faces a team that would struggle to make the playoffs out west in the second round. Even his conference finals opponent usually isn't even a top 5 team. Therefore he gets to play a ton of games. That's not to say he hasn't been great, just that his cumulative numbers have been easily inflated.
It's a fairly meaningless stat. If every series goes to 7 games, you will get more playoff points. If every series goes 3 games (like Kareem could've done' then you have less playoff points. And you don't even want to be the former.
I wonder how many point LeBron would have scored in the playoffs had he been playing in the West his whole career. He probably would score about the same ppg, but the number of games would be much less.
